


Remembrance

by Jen425



Series: Morphing Force [1]
Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst & Hurt/Confort, Gen, Past Brainwashing, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 06:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18255560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen425/pseuds/Jen425
Summary: Tommy Oliver is a reincarnate. That’s not particularly abnormal. The majority of people have Marks, labeling how and why they’d died, last life.The thing is, though… Tommy is now in the small minority that remembers.





	Remembrance

**Author's Note:**

> Not something I expected to write, but here we are!

I When Tommy is freed from Rita’s spell, he gets more than was bargained for. Everyone knows the statistics. Only two percent of reincarnates ever remember.

 

Which is hundreds of thousands of people, but the point stands.

 

Very few people remember.

 

But Rita, somehow, had dug up the Vader person from the depths of his old life’s memories, trickled in just a bit from when they first met but opened fully As she took him over.

 

And now he remembers everything.

 

It’s… overwhelming.

 

But Jason offers his hand, though, and Tommy takes it. It’s easier, grounding him to his current life. He’s offered a place on the team, and…

 

Rita needs to be defeated. That has to be the only reason they’re helping him. 

 

(Or maybe it’s because they’re all young and none of them understand, yet. They’ve never lived in a Galaxy ruled by pure evil. They don’t know…

 

Ah the beauty of reincarnate memories. They blend with the new life far faster than they should. He’s young, too, after all. And he’s still hopeful and loyal and everything Vader hated about Anakin.)

 

Tommy goes home and tries not to think about burning alive or the jagged lavender lines where skin had once met metal and the matching ones on his chest, marking his past life’s death. Or how the green coin on his belt was given by a woman who had violated his mind and made him do terrible things.

 

(Jason asks if he wants to come with the team to the youth center, but Tommy turns him down. It’s probably no more than courtesy, and he doesn’t think he can handle spending time with people he’d tried to kill, not until he’s been able to think for at least a moment.

 

The new part of him remembers Mortis, and Tommy thanks the Force that Ahsoka didn’t have to remember like he does.)

  
  
  


Tommy wakes that night barely holding back a scream and then he sobs for the first time in 23 years by one set of memories and seven by the other.

 

He can’t even place the dream. It was some odd mix of time and pain and choices and  _ mistakes _ . Ranger faces merged with Vader’s kills. Echoed pleas. Rita behind him on one side and Sidious on the other.

 

“Kill them all,” they say in unison, and all Tommy could feel was the pain of Vader’s Suit even as one flesh hand gripped the sword of darkness and the other, terrible metal, grips Vader’s tortured lightsaber and his helmet is clear instead of  _ red red red _ …

 

Tommy pulls into himself. Somehow the reawakened memories had returned Anakin Skywalker’s power in the Force. Or perhaps that’s just the power coin, sitting in the morpher on his bedside table because if he reaches out he knows he could sense Jason. Or Kimberly. Or Billy or Trini or Zack, none of whom he knows at all yet.

 

Again.

 

Again.

 

Again again again again!

 

Again some evil being had used him and hurt him and had him hurt others and he’d been truly trapped within his own mind, this time, but he remembers the  _ glee _ he’d felt, trying to kill the rangers, that he’d never felt even as Vader…

 

(He doesn’t get any more sleep, that night.)

  
  
  


Tommy still drags himself to school the next day. That’s how life worked for Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader, so he guesses it’s how it work for Tommy Oliver now, too.

 

He guesses that’s how it’ll always work for him.

 

He’s surprised to find Jason at his locker, though. Somehow, the Ranger is glowing red and gold in the Force rather than with the brilliance of any size of Star.

 

(None of the other Rangers glow multiple colors except himself. He wonders what it means.)

 

“Hey Jason,” he says. “You need anything?”

 

Jason shakes his head.

 

“No,” he says. “Just checking in on you. It can’t have been easy being under Rita’s control, like that.”

 

Ah. Doing his job as a leader. That’s something Anakin Skywalker remembers. He’d had a thousand men to check in on, though, not five.

 

But Tommy just shrugs in reaction.

 

“I can handle it,” he says. “I’m just glad you guys want me on the team after what I’ve done.”

 

Jason puts a hand on his shoulder.

 

“Hey, man,” he says. “That wasn’t you. That was Rita controlling you. I’m sure you’re a good person, really. Can’t wait to get to know you, maybe spar you again with some lower stakes.”

 

Tommy smiles, sadly.

 

(Jason has no idea. Nobody does. They have no idea what Rita drew on to create even the thoughts of her evil Ranger.)

 

“Thanks,” he says. “Maybe we can reschedule for—”

 

Then the bell rings.

 

“We gotta go, it seems,” Tommy says. Jason nods.

 

“Come hang out with us at the youth center after school?” He asks. “We can talk more there.”

 

And Tommy… he should say no. He did, just last night. 

 

And He doesn’t deserve forgiveness, but… there’s just something about Jason, and he has ad  _ some _ time to process his new memories of both his past life and Fita’s control, and, of course, his past life’s loneliness feels like just yesterday, so…

 

“Sure, man,” he says. “See you there.”

  
  
  


School is exhausting and Tommy only manages to stay awake with Vader’s resolve, stronger than Anakin’s during the Clone Wars and certainly anything he’s had to create in this life (not that he’d ever had a choice, as Vader. Or even during the Clone Wars, when he was still Anakin Skywalker). Which says everything and the worst about him.

 

He’s still gonna have to face everyone.

 

Sure, they’d all been happy enough to have him on the team, and Jason had forgiven him, but…

 

In truth, the problem is that he can’t forgive himself.

 

Still, Tommy makes his way to the youth center after school (not cutting through any side streets, this time, despite the irrationality of his fears. He’d felt it in the  _ Force _ , despite his lack of training in this life, known what was going to happen to him as he was teleported away, unable to do anything about it).

 

Jason waves him over from a table with the rest of the Rangers.

 

(It’s so odd now that he’s almost had time to process and can actually notice their glows. So odd that when he looks at himself he sees the Light and Dark both that he’d had in his last life. And green and red.

 

(And the Red should scare him, like the color of a tortured kyber crystal, but it’s hard when Jason, who saved him, glows the same color.)

 

And of course Jason glows gold and red both.

 

Perhaps this is a different Power than what he knows. Perhaps that’ll be a good thing.)

 

Tommy smiles as best he can.

 

“Mind if I sit here?” He asks. Kimberly and Jason scoot apart and Billy stands up.

 

“Sure.”

 

“How are you, Tommy?”

 

“Please, sit.”

 

And this time Tommy smiles for real.

 

Tommy Oliver has never had many, if any, friends, but it’s hard to be Tommy Oliver again after the brainwashing and the new memories of a terrible past life.

 

And now even if he’d had many friends, those friends can’t know him, now, as a ranger, like Anakin Skywalker’s best friend couldn’t know him…

 

But these Rangers… he knows that they’ll be special.

 

Especially, he thinks as the red ranger puts a hand on his shoulder and they laugh at a joke Zack just told, Jason.

 

And maybe things are different, now, but Anakin Skywalker had survived, in the end, Darth Vader had survived.

 

Tommy Oliver, it seems, will also find his way.

 

(and so, naturally, the best option is to lock away his past.

 

And cut himself off from the Force.)

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: @flaim-ita
> 
> Pillowfort: Flaim


End file.
